Category Archives: Women

THANK YOU BBC FOR IDENTIFYING THE PROBLEM GROUP OF MEN WHO COVER THEIR WOMEN IN SACKCLOTH, ARE PERMITTED TO BEAT THEM, KEEP THEM LOCKED UP, AND CAN DIVORCE YOUR ASS WITH 3 WORDS SAID 3 TIMES…AND EVEN KILL YOU FOR ‘DISHONOR’…COULDN’T BE A MUSLIM…SO IT’S GOT TO BE…..

THE ONLY REASON IT OCCURS IS BECAUSE ISLAM ITSELF TEACHES THAT WOMEN ARE OF LESS VALUE THAN A MAN…IT COSTS MORE TO REPLACE A DONKEY THAN IT DOES A DAUGHTER….BUT NO, WE’LL WASTE TIME AND LIVES ENGAGING IN MORE FEEL GOOD NONSENSE DESIGNED TO PROTECT THE RELIGION RATHER THAN IT’S VICTIMS..

Behaviour

Canada looks to Chicago to reduce ‘honour’ crimes

From Tuesday’s Globe and Mail

Published Monday, Jan. 23, 2012 9:27PM EST

Last updated Monday, Jan. 23, 2012 9:31PM EST

At first glance, gang crime in a U.S. city would seem to have little in common with the family conflicts that led to the killing of several women in Canada in recent years.

But one Canadian group is taking ideas gleaned from the streets of Chicago to tackle the troubling phenomenon of so-called honour crimes.

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‘Honour’ violence: a crime against humanity

The Muslim Resource Centre for Social Support and Integration in London, Ont. will announce Tuesday that it has a partnership with the renowned Chicago anti-violence group CeaseFire to develop the Family Honour Project, which its creators hope will soon spread to other communities.

The initiative, the first of its kind in Canada, is based on the work of epidemiologist Gary Slutkin, whose public-health approach to violence reduction has been credited with contributing to a significant reduction in gang shootings in Chicago.

Although gang shootings and family honour crimes seem quite different, at their core they share one important cause: Both are driven primarily by the fear that a person’s reputation or image will be harmed if he or she doesn’t respond violently to being treated with a perceived lack of respect.

The CeaseFire approach suggests that if conflict can be identified and calmed before it spirals out of control, casualties can be avoided. Ultimately, it aims to teach those prone to react violently to change the way they think.

The difficult part is identifying where violence might break out, understanding why that’s the case, and developing a line of communication so that counsellors can defuse the situation.

Norman Kerr, who was a director at CeaseFire for more than a decade and who is working with the MRC, said much of the work depends on building relationships. In Chicago, CeaseFire used ex-gang members as counsellors. In London, they expect to use social workers. Those social workers will need to be tapped into all aspects of a community’s life, from school, to the health system to the justice system, in order to gather all kinds of information about who needs support and how to provide it.

“A huge part of [the violence] is the way people feel they’re going to be viewed,” Mr. Kerr said. “We work with people that [feel] they have been disgraced. We talk to them about the consequences – “If you retaliate, this is what is going to happen” – and after a while they realize it’s not worth it. A lot of it is relationships.”

One of the reasons London’s MRC was chosen is that it has a long and successful history working on issues of family violence. It’s also a smaller city with a significant Muslim population. There are four mosques, including one for Shia worshippers and for Bosnian Muslims, but the range of ethno-cultural differences is not as complex as it is in other, bigger cities.

In recent years the city has welcomed dozens of families from war zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan. When interviewed by counsellors in the MRC’s safe integration program, many exhibit warning signs for potential honour-related crimes, according to Mohammed Baobaid, executive director of the MRC.

“If you have effective strategies for identifying the risk factors of so-called honour-related violence, you can reduce the possibility of honour killing,” he said. “If you intervene right when newcomers come to the country, it makes a huge difference.”

Dr. Baobaid said they often see families struggling with their teenage daughters.

“They are really concerned that their kids will be influenced by Western culture and they maybe will think, extremely, that the girls will initiate sexual relationships with boys. This kind of perception or thinking may lead some parents to be strict or use different control tactics to control the kids,” Dr. Baobaid said.

“We honour their concerns and feelings, but at the same time we help them understand the new reality. Really we help them look at the opportunities available here and normalize this kind of concern, because everybody who has a teenage kid would be concerned, not just Muslims.”

Cross-gender conflict seems to be a red flag, according to Eugène Tremblay, program manager at MRC. For many families their sense of public standing is carried in the behaviour of the female child, he said, which can lead to strife in a new cultural milieu.

“Our hope is to change the entire paradigm around how honour is viewed in the family, and to change it for the positive, so that homes become safer,” said Saleha Khan, an MRC board member.

The MRC will have two people working as counsellors initially, but they haven’t yet secured funding for the Family Honour Project. It will also be supported by family violence researchers from the faculty of education at the University of Western Ontario.

The idea behind this unusual collaboration began with Sheema Khan, a columnist at The Globe and Mail, who contacted Dr. Slutkin and suggested that his model might be applicable in Canada. He suggested she find a partner organization that was trusted by Muslims and well-regarded in the wider community. She chose the MRC. She said she hopes the project will be expanded to South Asian organizations more broadly, and perhaps grow beyond Canada to Europe and elsewhere.

STONING, IT’S LIKE A SPORTING EVENT TO MUSLIMS. HERE WE HAVE A WOMAN SENTENCED TO BE STONED TO DEATH, THE WEST PUTS UP A BIT OF STINK OVER IT AND NOW THEY ARE JUST GOING TO HANG HER. APPARENTLY STONING WOMEN IS POPULAR ENOUGH OVER THERE THAT IT’S STARTING TO BE SEEN AS A PROBLEM! REALLY???? YOU DON’T SAY? PROBLEM IS…IT’S NOT JUST ‘STARTING’, THIS HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR A LONG, LONG TIME. WOMEN ARE COMPLETLY EXPENDABLE, A DONKEY HOLDS MORE VALUE. AND THEN WE SEE ANOTHER STORY OF ANOTHER MUSLIM WOMAN AND ANOTHER, AND ANOTHER…AND RATHER THAN CONFRONT WHAT THE PROBLEM IS…WE STAY SILENT ON THEM. AND LET THEM DIE.

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GLOBE EDITORIAL

A misogynous penalty for Sakineh Ashtiani

From Friday’s Globe and Mail

Published Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012 11:26PM EST

Last updated Friday, Jan. 20, 2012 1:50PM EST

Iranian authorities are considering executing Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani by hanging rather than stoning, according to the latest reports on this mother of two.

Her original sentence of death by stoning was lifted amid international condemnation, including from Canada, the European Union and other countries. The Vatican pleaded for clemency. Brazil offered asylum. This latest development has not raised much outrage. It should.

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Ms. Ashtiani is serving 10 years after being convicted of helping to kill her husband. She was also convicted of having an “illicit relationship” with two men, a crime punishable by stoning, according to Islamic law. According to Amnesty International, she has received 99 lashings as part of her sentence.

In 2010, Laureen Harper, the wife of the Canadian Prime Minister, and Indigo CEO Heather Reisman wrote to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, calling for her release from prison. Their letter read: “As mothers, sisters and daughters, we are gravely concerned about the unfair, undue legal processes faced by women in Iran. Repugnant sentences, such as death by stoning, are routinely rendered against women in Iran.” Lawrence Cannon, the minister of foreign affairs at the time, also expressed concern over reports she was forced to confess on Iranian television.

Last month, a resolution adopted by 89 United Nations member states condemned stoning and the rise in death sentences for crimes “lacking a precise and explicit definition,” and Amnesty International released a report on the “dramatic rise” in death sentences for drug offences.

In Ms. Ashtiani’s case, though, the outcry has gone quiet. A Web site calling for her release, with a petition signed by Mrs. Harper and a host of celebrities such as Hugh Jackman, Sting and Yoko Ono has not been updated since 2010.

Mohammad Javad Larijani, secretary-general of the Iranian High Council for Human Rights, has reportedly said stoning should be considered a punishment, not a form of execution, adding it is more lenient. Why? Because half of the victims survive.

HOLD ALL THE MEETINGS, COMMITTEES, GATHERINGS, PROTESTS YOU WANT..WON’T MAKE A DIFFERENCE, THERE IS A LEGAL SYSTEM IN PLACE THERE AND UNDER IT WOMEN HOLD LESSER STATUS THAN A FARM DONKEY. THE PROBLEM IS SHARIA, THE “WAY OF LIFE” FOR ALL MUSLIMS…SO LONG AS SHARIA RULES, GIRLS WILL BE MURDERED..AGAIN AND AGAIN..

675 Pakistan ‘honour killing’ victims: commission

AFP – Tue, 20 Dec, 2011

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Pakistani Muslim women offer Eid prayers at the Badshahi Mosque in Lahore in November …

At least 675 Pakistani women and girls were murdered during the first nine months of the year for allegedly defaming their family’s honour, a leading human rights group said Tuesday.

The statistics highlight the scale of violence suffered by many women in conservative Muslim Pakistan, where they are frequently treated as second-class citizens and there is no law against domestic violence.

Despite some progress on better protecting women’s rights, activists say the government needs to do far more to prosecute murderers in cases largely dismissed by police as private, family affairs.

“A total of 675 women and girls were killed in the name of honour across Pakistan from January to September,” a senior official in the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan told AFP.

They included at least 71 victims under the age of 18.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is unauthorised to speak to the media, said figures were still being compiled from October to December, and that a full report would be released in February.

The Commission reported 791 honour killings in 2010 and there was no discernible decrease this year, the official added.

Around 450 of the women killed from January to September were accused of having “illicit relations” and 129 of marrying without permission.

Some victims were raped or gangraped before being killed, he said. At least 19 were killed by their sons, 49 by their fathers and 169 by their husbands.

Rights groups say the government should do more to ensure that women subject to violence, harassment and discrimination have effective access to justice.

Ali Dayan Hasan, Pakistan director at Human Rights Watch, told AFP that the state’s inability to enforce rule of law, leaving matters in the hands of tribesmen and local elders, was a major factor.

“We have a system in Pakistan where the state and judicial recourse are absent and the vacuum is filled by local elders,” he said.

“A combination of legal reforms, exercise of administrative authority and social awareness can greatly help check the honour killings,” he added.

Earlier this month, a Belgian court sentenced four members of a Pakistani family to prison for the murder of their daughter and sister, who defied them by living with a Belgian man and refusing an arranged marriage.

FROM AFGHANISTAN TO SAUDI ARABIA, WHERE BEING A RAPE VICTIM MAKES YOU A CRIMINAL! I WONDER WHAT THEY’LL DO WHEN ALL THE WOMEN ARE IMPRISONED? THEY’LL EITHER START RAPING EACH OTHER OR THE LIVESTOCK..WHAT A WONDERFUL CULTURE…

Girl gets a year in jail, 100 lashes for adultery

By Adnan Shabrawi

JEDDAH – A 23-year-old unmarried woman was awarded one-year prison term and 100 lashes for committing adultery and trying to abort the resultant fetus. The District Court in Jeddah pronounced the verdict on Saturday after the girl confessed that she had a forced sexual intercourse with a man who had offered her a ride. The man, the girl confessed, took her to a rest house, east of Jeddah, where he and four of friends assaulted her all night long. The girl claimed that she became pregnant soon after and went to King Fahd Hospital for Armed Forces in an attempt to carry out an abortion. She was eight weeks’ pregnant then, the hospital confirmed. According to the ruling, the woman will be sent to a jail outside Jeddah to spend her time and will be lashed after delivery of her baby who will take the mother’s last name. – Okaz/SG __

THESE DAMES THOUGHT THEIR PARTICIPATION IN THE ISLAMIC TAKEOVER ‘AKA’ ARAB SPRING WAS GOING TO HELP THEM IN SECURING EQUAL RIGHTS AS WOMEN FOR THEMSELVES..AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! I THINK THEY’VE GOT THEIR HIJABS ON WAY TOO TIGHT TO THINK ISLAM IN ANY WAY WOULD RECOGNIZE THEIR RIGHTS AS WOMEN. YOU WANT EQUAL RIGHTS, TAKE OFF THE TERRORIST BONNET, BRUSH YOUR HAIR OUT, GET RID OF THE ISLAM AND PROMPTLY MOVE TO A WESTERN NATION WHO WILL IMMEDIATELY RECOGNIZE YOUR RIGHTS AS A WOMAN..SO LONG AS YOU STAY THERE, YOU’LL STAY COVERED AND SILENCED..LIKE A GOOD MUSLIMA.

Arab Spring puts women’s rights in the spotlight

By Marie-Louise Gumuchian | Reuters – 25 minutes ago

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A female opposition supporter takes shelter while providing water during rioting …

A Libyan woman is reflected in a mirror as she looks at headscarves displayed on …

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – At a pre-wedding evening party in central Tripoli, a group of Libyan women sing traditional songs to the beat of a drum as they prepare to apply henna to the bride’s hands and feet.

Clapping her hands to the music as she waited for the bride to appear, 23-year-old Sarah Burruin said she has just one wish for women in the new Libya.

“I want women to be equal,” the engineering student said. “Whatever men do, I want women to be able to do it too. This is our time.”

In post-revolution Libya, Egypt and Tunisia, women are exploring what the Arab Spring means for them.

Since long-time leaders were toppled in the three north African states, many — not least in the West — fret the power vacuum will leave the door open for Islamist groups to take power and force changes that will damage women’s rights.

In Tunisia Islamists have already risen to power while in Egypt, they are leading staggered elections and have pledged to govern by Islamic laws.

In Libya, National Transitional Council (NTC) chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil alarmed many when he pledged to uphold Islamic law and ease polygamy rules in a speech to mark Libya’s “liberation” from Muammar Gaddafi’s 42-year rule, though he has since played down any suggestion of radical Islamist rule.

“I think where the Islamic laws will eventually bite is the rights of women. They already have declared (in Libya) that polygamy rules will be relaxed and who knows where that is going to go,” said Laleh Khalili, senior lecturer in Middle East Politics at the University of London.

TENSIONS IN TUNISIA

In Tunisia, where the Arab Spring was born when President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali was forced to step down, “secular” women have mobilized to defend their western lifestyles after the Islamist Ennahda party swept to power in the country’s first free election, including claiming almost all the seats won by women.

Women are lobbying the political parties to protect a pioneering 1956 law granting them full equality with men and to counter the pressure mounting from radical Muslims keen to push them back into traditional roles.

“I have never been so worried about women’s freedom as I am now,” said Saida Garrach, a lawyer and activist in the Tunisian Association of Democratic “omen.

“The threat is everywhere – on what women wear, how they think. If you are not with them (Islamists), they will insult you, harass you. I’ve been sworn at in the street because of things I have said on television.”

While Ennahda has promised not to impose strict Muslim rules on society and to respect women’s rights, many secularist women say they do not believe these promises.

“Ennahda cannot make any threats now because everyone will turn against them,” said 30-year-old Houda Ben Zid, an insurance worker who wears the hijab. “But they could do something later. Our way of life could be threatened.”

A small contingent of Salafists – hardline Islamists not associated with Ennahda – have sought to implement their purist interpretation of Islam and overturn secularist laws.

Some have demanded segregated classes and the right for women to wear full face veils at university, spurring clashes with secular students.

In Egypt, the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and the ultra-conservative Salafi party have claimed the most seats in the first two rounds of a parliamentary poll, the first free ballot in the Arab world’s most populous nation since President Hosni Mubarak was ousted in February.

Both parties advocate a more Islamic society but tell voters although they want more morality in public life they won’t impose Islamic moral codes and veils on women.

Campaigners say Egyptian women face some of the harshest treatment in the world: domestic violence, harassment and discrimination at work and in the law. Forced marriage of young girls is still common outside big cities.

Feminists say there is no better time to unite because the main factor that split the women’s movement – its domination by former first lady Suzanne Mubarak – has disappeared.

“It is known that the former president’s wife was the one behind any development on women rights and I fear that the new parliament seeking to gain popularity among the people will seek to eliminate those rules,” said Egyptian analyst Negad Borie.

A ROLE, YES, BUT WHAT KIND?

Although there is no doubt that Islamists will play an important role in the three states rocked by the Arab Spring, how those roles evolve will be shaped by each country’s unique social and cultural landscape.

Observers say Libyan society is more conservative than in Egypt and Tunisia.

“Egyptian women are strong, here is not like Libya. If they (Islamists) asked to pass stricter laws on women, the Egyptian society will not accept that,” said Samah Ahmed, an employee in Egypt’s Postal Service.

“We will not accept such thing and will go to the streets and make a big deal.”

Sitting in a Tripoli beauty salon waiting to get her hair cut, Jamila says she believes the majority of her countrymen practice moderate Islam.

“Libya is moderate but we fear extremists,” she said.

The 60-year-old was disappointed by NTC head Abdel Jalil’s comments on polygamy because they implied men would no longer need written permission from their wives to have another spouse.

“I like the fact that a man has to ask for permission to marry another woman, it protects women’s dignity,” she said.

Others considered the tone and timing of the speech and ceremony a slap in the face to women.

“I support Islamic values. I understand that in the Koran it says you can marry four women, no problem with that. I do not like when he said it, Liberation Day; there are more important issues than polygamy,” said Alaa Murabit, a student doctor and co-founder of the Voice of Libyan Women organization.

“What made me angry was that a woman didn’t speak on Liberation Day. Have her speak on that international stage that day – it would have sent a very different message.”

Murabit last month organized post-war Libya’s first international women’s conference, which was attended by the country’s new leaders, including Abdel Jalil.

When he took the stage this time, he took care to enumerate the many ways women had supported and led Libya’s revolution and promised women would play an important role rebuilding the country.

There are a few women in the new government, including the ministers for health and social affairs.

As the country rebuilds after eight months of war, Libyan women are laying out their vision for a new beginning. Numerous women’s organizations have sprung up since Gaddafi’s overthrow, creating meeting centers and holding awareness lectures and workshops on social, political and business issues.

“For now we just want enough women to go to elections, this alone is a huge challenge,” said Amira Alshokri, co-founder of Tripoli-based NGO Phoenix. She said Phoenix had recently sent out thousands of invitations to women for a free “Know your rights” lecture, but only 50 showed up.

“In this sensitive time you would think this topic would trigger women to come…(Women) became too lazy to act because they knew their voice would not be heard, make a difference. This is what we’re working on right now, we want to raise awareness.”

A change is already apparent, said Ines Miloud.

The 21-year-old student says there are more women out and about in her small town of Yifran in Libya’s Western Mountains, as opposed to before the revolution when most women tended to stick to more traditional roles in the home.

“Before I would wake up, go to college and come back home. Now I am out all day,” she said. “My mother says: ‘You are like a boy’.”

Miloud has co-founded an association in the Western Mountains to promote women’s rights.

“We have a lot of talented women but they were just buried. They are still afraid from the Gaddafi era. We are trying to show them that they are free.”

Activists say it’s not just women who need to speak out, and not just on women’s issues.

“I think it will take much more to change the mentality in Libya. Everybody’s focusing on women’s development and women’s education … and they’re forgetting it’s not just women. It’s national development and national education,” Murabit said.

“Every woman has a different aspiration. I think the overall aspiration is to respect each woman’s individual choice.”

(Additional reporting by Yasmine Saleh in Cairo and Tarek Amara in Tunis; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

SEE ISLAM, THE MORE YOU TRY TO SHOVE THIS MISOGYNIST GARBAGE DOWN THE THROATS OF WESTERNERS, THE MORE YOU’RE GOING TO GET PUSHED BACK. THIS IS CANADA, NOT SAUDI ARABIA, IF YOU WANT TO LIVE HERE IT IS ‘YOU’ THAT HAS TO ASSIMILATE, NOT US! THE IDEA OF COVERING A WOMAN IN SACKCLOTH TO CONCEAL HER IDENTITY IS DISGRACEFUL, AND SHOULD BE BANNED OUTRIGHT. WE MAY BE A PART OF BRITAINS COMMONWEALTH, BUT MAKE NO MISTAKE, THIS ISN’T BRITAIN. CANADA WILL NOT BE HOME TO THE NIQAB, MUSLIM NO GO AREAS, OR ANY OTHER CRAP BRITAIN HAS TAKEN FROM THE RELIGION OF PEACE, DON’T LIKE IT? LEAVE.

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So, it was bound to happen, but a young woman wearing a niqab was assaulted in Mississauga mall, and had her face veil pulled off in public. Inas Kadri, who I happen to have known for many years, has handled the incident well, promoting a need for understanding and education. She has naturally been concerned for her children, who were present during the assault. Her son is reported to wake up with nightmares, and fear for his safety. I feel for Inas’s family, as well as the potential impact to her own self esteem after an incident like this. But I also feel for Rosemarie Creswell who has shown regret for her actions. She is alleged to have been under the influence of alcohol prior to the incident and lost her husband four years ago, according to reports. Why would a 66 year old woman, who lives alone, venture to make such a public show of hatred? Like many, I feel she is just a pawn in the game of hate. Usually, there are others standing behind those who act upon hatred, stoking the flames. How many insidious commentators have contributed to her understanding of Muslims, especially women wearing the niqab? Rosemary Creswell has been pubically admonished for her actions by a Brampton Court judge, but what of those who goad others into such hatred? This case debunks many of the theories that float around concerning women in niqab. That they are forced to wear it (Inas’s husband has declined to comment, saying he would prefer his wife speak for herself). That people are afraid of what’s behind the niqab, and that communication becomes difficult in our society (It is plain to see that Inas is an educated, strong woman, who has expressed her feelings eloquently regarding the issue). I hope that some good comes of this incident. Naturally, the hatemongers will continue to stoke the flames of hatred, outraged that a brave woman would stand up to niqabs, which don’t belong in public places in Canada. The sensible will stop and think about what has happened and agree that a woman should be free to walk in a mall, dressed as she pleases, and not be subjected to harassment from anyone.

Saudi Woman Beheaded for ‘Witchcraft’

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A Saudi woman was beheaded after being convicted of practicing “witchcraft and sorcery,” according to the Saudi Interior Ministry, at least the second such execution for sorcery this year.

The woman, Amina bint Abdulhalim Nassar, was executed in the northern Saudi province of al-Jawf on Monday.

A source close to the Saudi religious police told Arab newspaper al Hayat that authorities who searched Nassar’s home found a book about witchcraft, 35 veils and glass bottles full of “an unknown liquid used for sorcery” among her possessions. According to reports, authorities said Nassar claimed to be a healer and would sell a veil and three bottles for 1500 riyals, or about $400.

According to the ministry, Nassar’s death sentence was upheld by an appeals court and the Saudi Supreme Judicial Council.

“The charges of ‘witchcraft and sorcery’ are not defined as crimes in Saudi Arabia and to use them to subject someone to the cruel and extreme penalty of execution is truly appalling,” Luther said.

Luther said that a charge of sorcery is often used by the Saudi government as a smokescreen under which they punish people for exercising freedom of speech.

Nassar was not the first person to be executed for alleged witchcraft by the Saudi government this year. In September, a Sudanese man was publicly decapitated with a sword in the city of Medina after he was found guilty of the same crime.

According to Amnesty International, at least 79 people have been executed in Saudi Arabia so far in 2011, more than three times as many as in 2010. The human rights group condemned the kingdom’s reliance on capital punishment.

“Where the death penalty is used, under international law it should only be applied to the most serious crimes,” Luther said.

The Saudi embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“Everything that happened was the worst thing that somebody could go through.”

“You’re just totally alone in a foreign country, with no assistance from your employer or the embassy.”

Ms Gali, a salon manager at the resort, said she had been in the staff bar, where she was told she could legally drink, when another employee put ice in her drink.

She said it was the last thing she remembered before waking the next day in her room with painful injuries.

“I didn’t know what had happened. I was traumatised, I felt ill. I didn’t even remember getting there or what had happened,” Ms Gali said.

She said it was only when she took herself to hospital did she realise she had been sexually assaulted.

Later she learned she had been heard screaming and security guards had found men hiding in her room, where she was naked and unconscious.

When she was discharged from hospital she was asked to go to a police station to make a statement and then speak in front of a judge.

“I realised when I was put in a police car that I was being taken to jail.”

Ms Gali said she was never warned by her UAE employers that she could be charged with adultery and face prison if she complained of being raped, without having four adult male Muslim witnesses.

“I didn’t even know what the charges were until five months into my sentence,” Ms Gali said.

Three of the men Ms Gali claimed sexually abused her were jailed, but for adultery and not rape.

After serving eight months of a 12-month sentence, Ms Gali was pardoned and released and flew home in March 2009.

Since then she has been treated for post traumatic stress disorder, suffered claustrophobia and flashbacks.

“I felt depressed, angry and confused,” she said.

“I was the victim. I’d had something wrong done to me and I was being punished.”

Law firm Maurice Blackburn on Thursday filed a damages claim in the Supreme Court in Brisbane, alleging Ms Gali’s employer failed to warn her of the risk of being drugged, raped, charged with adultery and jailed if she complained.

Solicitor Melissa Payne said it was a complex legal case and they would consult experts in UAE law.

1 DEAD “FIRST’ WIFE AND 3 DEAD DAUGHTERS, COURTESY OF ISLAM…

Quadruple killing hearing opens in Kingston

Last Updated: Tuesday, October 5, 2010 | 8:56 PM ET

Tooba Mohammad Yehya, left, her son Hamid Mohammad Shafia, centre, and his father, Mohammad Shafia, are seen after their arrest in July 2009.(CBC)

Lawyers started presenting pre-trial motions at a hearing in Kingston Tuesday for three members of a Montreal family charged with killing four female relatives last year.

The bodies of sisters Zainab Shafia, 19, Sahara Shafia, 17, and Geeti Shafia, 13, as well as Rona Amir Mohammed, 50, were found June 30, 2009, in a Nissan Sentra submerged in a lock of the Rideau Canal at Kingston Mills.

The bodies of the four victims were pulled from a submerged car in the Rideau Canal locks northeast of Kingston, Ont. (CBC)

Testimony at the pre-trial hearing is being instantly translated into English, French and Farsi, the language spoken by the Shafia family, who are originally from Afghanistan and moved to Montreal in 2007.